You
Suck@Projects
(A
cautionary ballad for the executive palate)
Okay, okay, I get it!
Your non-existent experience successfully managing projects
didn’t get you promoted into your executive
position.
(I understand! Project managers aren’t on any executive
track!
It might be superstition, but they’ll never
get your commission.) Will they?
And now you’ve inherited these ungainly systems,
which are mostly pursuing projects as missions,
what will you do now?
You’ll do what you did in B-school: you’ll
cram.
You’ll grab a few books, and stuff like
exams.
I mean, how hard could managing projects be?
It ain’t rocket science, obviously.
What will you read? Maybe PMI's theories, Mythical Man Month,
and
Wylie’s acclaimed Executive Series.
What will you take away?
Well-distilled nostrums; real heady stuff.
A tiny ration of common sense.
And enough on-time, on-budget, on-spec horse shit to
compost a small country.
You’ll spout acronyms, my friend,
until no one ever questions your credentials again.
Then you’ll sound the horn, you’ll lead the
way,
and you’ll start making commitments for others that very
first day.
You’ll cite strategies, and competition, using buzzwords to
convey
A deepening dedication to whatever it is you
say.
And you’ll command, “Deliver by June,” and,
“Play some musical chairs!
Just tell me the kinda resources you need, and I’ll plead for
you upstairs.
Just justify your methods and rationalize your goals
and there’s no limit to how far all of us will
go.”
(I know, I know, you
won’t mention the fact
that project management ain’t on the executive track
---
while you motivate them through Hell and back.)
Then what? Yeah, then what?
They deliver over-runs and under-shots,
FUBARs, SNAFUs, and
you-don’t-even-wanna-know-whats.
Their best laid plans usually exceed fixed cost;
they embarrass you with your boss’s boss’s boss.
You miss a strategic deadline twice
and discover your old friends aren’t quite as nice as they
usta be at the club.
For you, bub, are boob of the month, moron of the quarter, and
idiot of the first half-year
‘till you wonder what in the devil ever enticed you over
here
when you could have positioned yourself to rise
through Sales or Marketing
and left this project crap to stumble, curse, and fail,
but nooooo, you just had to hop the fastest plane on your way to
the top of the top of your game.
Then you wear your career like a toilet seat crown
and nobody appreciates you hanging around.
Your project teams seem to notice your summit‘s
a pimple, a dimple, and your stock simply plummets.
‘Cause you suck at projects, you suck like
parole,
you suck at the stuff you were supposed to control:
the smooth operation of these things you don’t
know.
You’ve mistaken these efforts for something you’ve
seen,
for processes, metrics, and rational schemes.
But none of these projects perform to your skills!
Worse, each one insists upon threatening to kill
the one who, with his sincerity pure,
proposed what then seemed just a reasonable
cure.
And once you start sucking, you suck at your
life,
You suck to your company, colleagues,
and wife.
(Who by the way wonders why
you come home so late,
stumbling between mumbling and nearly irate.)
No one ever hinted in MBA school
That an executive’s lot could be
half this cruel, ... did they?
You wonder how the magic wand
you once claimed
Could betray you so quickly,
just whom should you blame?
But the breadth of your genius
at playing this game
Simply leads you to mandate
even more of the same,
’Cause you have mistaken what
might well be soccer
For baseball or football, and you bet like a
sucker.
You coach with the best of intentions and find
Your teams unresponsive to you and your bind.
You’re stuck with impossibles, a trussed suckling
pig,
But you won’t satisfy their concerns
and renege!
No, you’ll just put your head
down and fearlessly charge
Another objective both fuzzy and large.
And if you’re at all like
your fellow ’IOs
You’ll continue this dance until they let you go.
To merge with the mumbling executives
emeritus
Who once sucked at projects but
refuse to discuss
How they sucked at projects,
though their teams seemed to
fail,
And how you personally tried to guide them through Hell
And how if only they would
have noticed how wise ...
The guidance you offered coulda
won them the prize.
Instead, you have retired early to write
the book that your colleagues will
stuff down at night
Attempting to do what not one
of them can,
To not suck at projects again and
again.
And Wylie seems interested in a three volume deal,
to be published with the fanfare certain to seal
The professional fate of whomever might read ’em,
To just suck at projects forever and ever, and ever!
Amen.
©2008 by David A. Schmaltz -
all rights reserved
